


Heat

by stoprobbers



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:34:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1784224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is what happens to humans in the heat?! This is bloody rubbish!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heat

“ _This_ is what happens to humans in the heat?! This is bloody rubbish!”

Rose looks up from her task of peeling her slick thigh off the leather armchair where she’d settled when it was still dark and maybe sort of cool in the sun room, and sees the Doctor standing in the doorway, naked save for his boxer briefs, his hair deflated, a trickle of sweat running down his cheek from his sideburn. If it wasn’t, as he’d implied, so awfully hot, she’d be straddling him by now. Instead she just arches an eyebrow and finishes lifting her leg, the sound of skin and leather separating is sharp in the still, silent room.

"Well," she says slowly, standing and wincing at the peeling sensation, "It is when your air is broken."

"I was not warned about this," he grumbles. She’d woken only a couple hours earlier, stifled and sweating and absolutely miserable, kicking covers tangled around her ankles off and on and off again before her mind cleared enough to realize that, in the midst of the British heatwave, their air conditioner had rather spectacularly quit. He’d been snoring contentedly beside her and she’d opted not to wake him, instead poking around in their electrical closet for all of one and a half minutes before giving up and calling their super. Their very busy and alarmingly uninterested super. By the fuzzy look in his eye, the Doctor’s stumbled out of bed, out of the pajama pants he usually sleeps in, and into the living room and thus has not yet had a chance to complain yet, even to their ceiling.

"What, the heat?" She gives him an odd look, "As far as I’ve ever known, you’re really quite informed about Earth’s temperate climate and its four seasons."

"No, not the heat, of course there’s heat in summer, I just was not properly warned, I think, about how, despite your renting a very posh flat in a very posh building, your HVAC system is still shite."

"Oi!" She exclaims as he saunters over to her, appraising her own state of undress (a vest and her knickers and the vest is even too much she only put it on because the windows in the sun room are huge and they’ve not lost power all together, just the air conditioning, so the lights are on and the blinds are up). She crosses her arms, rejects the heat of her own skin against itself, and drops them back to her side.

"I’ll have you know that I did not rent this flat because it is  _posh_. I rented it because it was—” She falters. She rented the flat because it had roof access and from the roof you could see the Powell Estates, not the Powell Estates in this universe, the Unger Estates (an ugly name, she thinks, and can’t fathom why it would be different even after the years she’s been stuck here) and it reminds her of home. Real home.

"I know," he says, and moves a little bit to hug her. He does know; the first time she took him up there he froze and his face drained of all color. She thought maybe he’d developed, in the metacrisis, a sudden paralyzing fear of heights but instead he’d walked to the edge, sat there like a zombie for a few minutes (giving her a pretty intense heart attack at the same time, her nails digging into her own palms as she prayed and prayed that he wouldn’t fall), and then jumped up, pinning her to the roof access door and snogging her within an inch of her life.

The memory must have flashed across her face because hand that had been reaching out to touch her arm stills, then retreats. She’s secretly grateful; his body temperature isn’t quite the same as full-blooded humans, but it’s close enough that she couldn’t bear the heat of it now either. No touching, not until they’ve at least managed to make a breeze appear out of thin air. He steps past her and flops pathetically down onto the suede sofa. Then he makes a face.

"I’m sweaty, Rose,  _sweaty._ Me,  _I’m sweaty_!”

"That’s the human body’s cooling system, my darling," she indulges, perching on the arm of the couch behind his head. His eyebrows lift impossibly high as he looks at her upside-down.

"It’s  _rubbish_. Time Lord bodies cycle the blood through twice, cools it right down, keeps us from ever getting hot. Gallifrey had two suns you know, two big mighty suns close to the surface, you lot could have never even made it. Granted, we built the Citadel inside a dome to help with temperature control, but your average Gallifreyan — not even a Time Lord, Rose, just a regular Gallifreyan! — could walk around outside easy peasy without even breaking a sweat. No sunburn, too, we don’t sunburn, radiation does nothing much at all; used to play with Rontgen bricks in the nursery, we did. Time Lords,” here he pauses dramatically, twisting his upper body so he’s looking at her properly, his face a mask of serious pompousness in the dim early morning light, so familiar to her from years and years and years ago, “do not  _sweat_.”

"Well, this one does…" she says softly, trailing a fingertip down his damp, bare chest. He swats it away impatiently.

“ _You’re_ hot too, you know. Don’t touch me, you make it worse.” With a glare he untwists and flops back onto his back, “It’s  _so hot_. It’s barely even morning, what right does it have to be this hot?!”

"I know," she sighs and slumps back, "I called the repairman but even at 6 a.m. he’s swamped. Half of London is drowning in a pool of their own sweat. You know what would help? A sonic screwdriver."

"It’s not done yet," bristling like he does every time she mentions it. He had his spare in his blue suit when he got there, but it got burned out on the job just before they quit Torchwood full-time. Even with consultant access it’s been a right pain in the arse to cobble together again. "I still have a couple dozen parts to solder on and I am  _not_ turning a soldering iron on, it’ll spontaneously combust our home. Since when does London get heat waves?”

She ignores the little flutter of pleasure the words  _our home_  set off in the pit of her stomach. She really should be used to that by now, it’s been nearly a year, but it feels so new and wonderful every time she thinks she may never adjust. “I don’t know. I don’t like it, either.”

"I don’t even understand how you can wear that vest. I’m stifled and I’m practically naked."

"Yeah," she sighs wistfully and stands, walking over to the fridge. She put water-filled ice trays in about an hour ago but they’re still mostly slush. She glares at them, as if that’ll make them freeze faster. She’s so caught up in trying to will the ice to freeze that she doesn’t hear him come up behind her.

"So why are you still wearing it?" he asks, voice in her ear. She jumps a little.

"What?"

"Your vest. Why are you wearing it if it makes you hot?"  
  
“Cuz I’m sweaty. It makes me itchy.”

"Really?" he sounds curious, but his hands are at her waist, thumbs tracing small circles. Their slow movement bunches the fabric near her hem up slowly but surely.

"You didn’t want me to touch you a moment ago," she reminds him, "What’s the point of getting me naked?"

"It might be too hot to touch, but I can still enjoy the view," he sounds offended, pulling away a little and she turns in his grip, grinning at him. He cocks an eyebrow in return. "I  _will_ still enjoy the view.”

"So basically: You’re hot, being a human is rubbish, and would I please take off my shirt?" 

He nods eagerly and she laughs, shaking off his relaxed grip and opening a drawer to pull out a couple of kitchen towels. She turns the cold tap on and begins to soak them in the water. The Doctor makes a curious noise behind her and moves closer again.

"Whatcha doin’?" his accent veers north, almost into Scottish territory. It sends a little flash of heat through her, a welcome feeling at any time but now. She curses the broken air conditioner silently but vehemently. Instead of pushing her bum back into the firm bulge at his crotch and pulling his arms fully around her waist, she wrings out a towel and tosses it over her shoulder, splaying it like a cape across her back. The water is freezing and, despite the barrier of her vest and the climbing temperature in their flat, she breaks out in gooseflesh.

"Ohhh," she moans softly and he tugs her back, bum against his crotch anyway and yes, that bulge is there and rather firmer than it looked a few seconds ago. The cold water seeps into her vest and then streams down towards her hips as he snakes his arms around her waist and holds her tight, the towel against his bare chest. His moan echoes hers and they both sigh.

"Here," she says after a moment, wringing out the other towel and swiping her exposed chest with it before passing it backwards, "put this on your back."

"You’re brilliant, Rose Tyler," he vows as he does and she can see the hairs on his arms stand up as he breaks out with gooseflesh as well. "My genius, Rose Tyler…"

His voice goes sing-song as he murmurs compliments, both of them cooling down as their towels start to get warmer. Reluctantly they break apart and Rose turns the tap back on and submerges the fabric again.

"I’ll put them in the freezer for ten minutes. We can walk and get an iced coffee, and then I’ll call the super again.  _I’m_ not going to be able to sleep tonight. This morning. Whatever.” A sleep deprivation headache is building, she can feel it, right now just some pressure behind her eyes but soon…

"Walk? Iced coffee?" The Doctor parrots, sounding confused. "What, like outside? You want me to put on  _clothes_? I don’t think so, no I don’t think so at all. It is simply too hot and stifling out there, the walk down the block could kill us! Rose, human bodies are far too fragile for this, we have to cool down. A cool bath or shower, that’ll do the trick.”

He’s playing with the hem of her vest again, the back transparent and cooling her as it slowly dries and she wants to tell him this (and also that his hands are still far, far too hot) but he yanks it up over her head before she can get in a word. They stare at each other, matching now in just pants and nothing else, his chest a lot slicker with sweat than hers, her nipples a lot harder than his. He looks pleased by that.

"We could go for a swim," she suggest, resisting the urge to cross her arms and hide, knowing that she’s jiggling with every word and every breath. She doesn’t even have to know her body to know that; the Doctor’s eyes are quite unabashedly not looking into hers. 

"You’re adding clothes again."

"A swimsuit isn’t clothes."

"A swimsuit is clothes enough. As your doctor," he glances up, winks, returns his gaze to her chest, "I must advise you to refrain from clothing yourself to ward off hyperthermia."

"Is that so?" He nods eagerly and she giggles and can tell, by the way his eyes widen just slightly, that she’s bouncing a bit more, "So I shouldn’t call to nag Brian, then? He said maybe around eleven, that’s acceptable?"

"Exactly," he nods as if he’s made a grand decision and reaches for her, "It’s half of London, after all. We’re just as important as anyone else. Less, even. The bathtub is huge, practically a pool. A skinny dip would be the perfect way to stay cool and safe."

She snickers and he finally looks up. “What?”  
  
“I thought human bodies were rubbish.”

"They are," he says and his voice is dark and soft like velvet. He steps closer, reaches to take a breast in each hand. "If I were a Time Lord I could cool you with a single touch. No need for towels, or pools, or showers. Just my hands and my…"

He trails off, leans down, takes the tip of one breast in his mouth and sucks and she can’t help it, his mouth might be too hot but his tongue is so focused, she arches into his touch. He pulls away and blows on the wet skin left in his wake and she shivers.

"Hmmm, now that’s promising," he murmurs, "Right, humans sweat so it can evaporate, which cools them down. But there are so many ways to get you wet…"

He trails off again and she’s about to make a very crude and very childish joke when she suddenly finds herself off the floor, feet dangling confused in midair for a moment before she wraps her legs around her waist. His mouth is planting hot, wet kisses across her collarbone that are, at least for now, more uncomfortable than exciting, and sweat pools between skin where their bellies touch. She wriggles, but his grip is firm. There’s a protest on her lips as he nudges their bedroom door open, the room shielded from dawn by drawn curtains and just barely cooler than the rest of the house, but when he lays her down he starts painting cold trails on her abdomen with his tongue and she can’t remember what she’s been on about.

They’re still testing out ways to cool down when the repairman knocks hours later.


End file.
